Director: Karen Shopsowitz
National Film Board of Canada. 2000. $39.95
Length: 60 minutes
Audience: Secondary, Post-Secondary
Topics: film-making, personal and social history
Barry's Bulletin Review:
This film explores the history and the social implications of home movies from the 1930s to the 1960s. Filmmaker Karen Shopsowitz is ideally suited to tell the story: her father was an avid amateur filmmaker who shot plenty of film of his family and their vacations. Most of the clips we see are rather rough - people tend to look goofy because the camera caught them off-guard. But many are poignant, such as the one of a mother looking at the footage of her deceased parents and realizing that this is all she has left of them.
Some historians and social critics regard the material as powerful testimony to what we really value: how we regard our families, and their special (often tacky) rituals. An imaginative media teacher could work with the material to explore how personal history can be played against the backdrop of social history. Pondering the difference between the two formats would be a great footnote to exploring McLuhan's thesis about the unique properties of different media.
My Father's Camera can be ordered online from the National Film Board.
